November 24, 2012

"It is hard to love people whom we do not respect..."

"... but it is harder still to love those whom we respect more highly than we respect ourselves."

A maxim of Le Duc de La Rochefoucauld.

10 comments:

Scott said...

"...it is harder still to love those whom we respect more highly than we respect ourselves."

Not if you're codependent.

Unknown said...

Doesn't leave much room for love.

tiger said...

Interesting.

But I have a much better motto, taken from 'If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him'.

Paraphrased: 'If you have a hero, look around because you've done something wrong'.

No one gets put on a pedestal by me, including the Dali Lama, one of the world's great scam artists.

People who scoff at Christianity believe this guy is a living reincarnation. One is no better than the other and Westerners who lap up his nonsense are fools.

Same goes for Castro; the sooner that POS murderer dies the better off Cuba and the world will be.

leslyn said...

"...it is harder still to love those whom we respect more highly than we respect ourselves."

Not if you're codependent.

Codependence is the opposite of respect. It is a profound disrespect for oneself, which leads to doing anything for anyone IOT gain approval.

La Rochefoucauld was either being the consummate arrogant cynic, or merely flippant. With him, it could go either way.

I don't see how one can love someone they do not respect. I don't know how one measures degrees of relative respect between lovers, either. I just know I've loved whom I respected, and who respected me.

leslyn said...

Well, tiger, you've now shown us by your wholesale contempt for virtually everyone that no one need respect you.

edutcher said...

Loving people we do not respect is called love at first sight, or, as it is eventually recognized, lust.

chickelit said...

Voltaire called the book le premier grand livre de la prose française.

I highly recommend a slim volume called French Wit And Wisdom by Joseph Palmeri who was a Professor of French and Italian at UW-Madison. It's chock full of La Rouchefoucauld.

Guildofcannonballs said...

I love William F. Buckley Jr. Never knew him but from his written works and some Firing Line clips.

My respect for him approaches that which one I should like to think would have for a saint and a prophet.

McTriumph said...

I never personally knew him, but I met him twice. Very nice man.

Simon Kenton said...

Dans les mechances de nos meilleurs amis, il y a quelquechose que ne nous deplait pas.